Getting the basics right: Integrating Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach into education systems in Zambia and Cote d’Ivoire

• In Event: Scaling and systems change in international education development: perspectives of funders and implementers (Part 2)

Proposal

The learning crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa is well documented, where about half of pupils in public schools fail to acquire basic language and mathematics skills in the first three years of schooling. Without this base, these children are much less likely to finish primary school and proceed to secondary, and have overall lower socio-economic outcomes later in life. In the search for solutions, research has demonstrated that a number of approaches are effective in improving basic learning outcomes. The problem is that most of the successful programs are implemented in parallel with the national education system and do not become sufficiently integrated, even though development practice now recognizes the central role of national institutions and systems in sustainably improving education outcomes.

This presentation will trace the journey of embedding an education approach – Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) – in the education systems of Zambia and Côte d’Ivoire through a systems-oriented approach. TaRL was developed in India by an education NGO Pratham, demonstrated large-scale impact on improving basic learning skills, and has been adopted by a number of Indian states. In 2015, the first members of the TaRL Africa team started to engage with African governments with the aim to help public education systems adapt the core design features of TaRL to their own contexts. TaRL Africa’s philosophy is that for any education improvement to be sustained at scale, it must be owned by local actors with the skills to implement it well, and integrated into existing practices and structures within national and local education systems

We will describe the context in which TaRL was introduced in Zambia and Côte d’Ivoire, and how four core principles are enabling the uptake of this high-impact approach into the education systems. The four principles are (a) a clear and visible focus on the problem at hand and how to address it – in this case keeping the focus on learning improvement in foundational skills; (b) keen understanding of the local context and adapting the programme to work within existing systems and structures; (c) building coalitions within and outside government as well from national to local levels, and; (d) building capacity across the system to motivate for and champion the approach at multiple levels. Although the process of fully integrating TaRL into these education still has a way to go, initial results are promising: More than a million children have received TaRL through public education system in Zambia, and more than 400,000 in Côte d’Ivoire; and among these, early assessment data have demonstrated for example a 15-37 percentage point increase in children able to read a simple paragraph. These findings and reflections are an important contribution to our understanding of what it takes to meaningfully engage with systemic change in order to drive improved learning outcomes for all children.

Author

• Ashleigh Gillwald Morrell, TaRL Africa